Imagine being able to play Overwatch on a portable device away from home. Not only would it be the perfect way of killing time during your daily work commute, but it could very well eliminate the need to stare blankly into space with any of life’s laborious necessities. Up until now, such a prospect has been largely unexplored, due to there not being suitable device for such a thing to happen, but now we have the Nintendo Switch.
The burning question, of course, is whether we’re likely to ever see Blizzard’s shooter grace the hardware, to which we sort of have an answer. Posting on Reddit (via GameSpot) yesterday, Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan touched base in regards to his own personal opinion of the Switch and the possibilities of it ever receiving an Overwatch port. If you’re currently excited about where this is going, you might want to tone your expectations down a notch, because Kaplan’s comments aren’t the most reassuring.
I’m loving the Switch! My second favorite gaming platform of all time is the 3DS. Getting OW on the Switch is very challenging for us. But we’re always open minded about exploring possible platforms.
It’s unclear exactly what Kaplan means by a potential Switch version of Overwatch posing a challenge for Blizzard to overcome, but one can only assume it has something to do with performance. While Overwatch is by no means the most demanding title in terms of the hardware required to run it, getting it to perform to an acceptable level on the Switch could prove to be futile, what with docked and undocked modes having varying levels of performance. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, for example, runs near-perfectly on Switch while undocked, but suffers frame rate issues when relayed through a TV.
Ultimately, it looks as if Overwatch on Switch is certainly a possibility, but one that’s unlikely to become a reality, at least anytime soon. We’ll have to see what the future brings on that front, but in the meantime, Overwatch‘s newest character, Orisa, was recently announced for the shooter and is currently available to try on PC. A full launch is expected before the month is out.
